Socrates' warning that he will be replaced, and by
many, is a curious one. Only a bit earlier, at
31a, he warns the jury not to condemn him, as he
will not be easy to replace. Now he suggests that
he is quite replaceable, and that the jury will not
solve their problem at all by putting him to death.
Perhaps we see here that Socrates does indeed
change his tactics and his position in order to
avoid death. Before he was sentenced, he argued
that he was irreplaceable in an attempt to convince
the jury not to sentence him. Once he was
sentenced, he warned the jury they would only be
causing themselves more headaches if they put him
to death--perhaps another attempt to get them to
change their verdict.
Though it can be supported with textual evidence,
this reading is not a desirable one; it would
contradict so much of what Socrates has said about
not fearing death and maintaining his position that
it would drastically weaken the force and integrity
of his words. Perhaps a better reading comes from
asking what rhetorical effects Plato was aiming for
in these two different passages. At 31a, Plato is
honoring Socrates, his great mentor, pointing out
that he is unique among thinkers, and completely
original. Here, at 39c-d, Plato is alluding to
himself and many of the other pupils of Socrates
who became active after Socrates' death, writing
Socratic dialogues and passing on his teachings.
Socrates' claim, at 39d, that these new critics
will be younger and harsher is borne out by The
Apology itself, in which Plato provides a
damning criticism of Meletus and the Athenian
justice system. Furthermore, the seemingly
inconsistent claims at 31a and 39c-d can be
reconciled in this reading. Plato is right in
saying that Socrates is unique and original: no one
like him has appeared in the subsequent two-and-a-
half millennia. On the other hand, it is also true
that his influence did breed a whole new generation
of critics. In fact, Socrates almost single-
handedly gave birth to the Western rational
philosophical tradition, and if all philosophers
that have come since are following in his
footsteps, his form of criticism has multiplied
exponentially.
Socrates' attitude toward death and the afterlife
is fleshed out in far greater detail in Plato's
Phaedo, a more mature work that deals
primarily with the question of the immortality of
the soul. In this dialogue, Socrates' uncertainty
is gone, and he is quite convinced that his soul
will live on in the afterlife. This contrast
between The Apology and the Phaedo is
illustrative of the contrast between the early and
more mature works of Plato. An early work, The
Apology centers more around Socrates'
philosophical opinions, which, as he so
persistently claims, are agnostic regarding any
factual questions. As Plato developed his own
voice, he began increasingly to speculate on more
metaphysical and epistemological questions, and
used Socrates as more of a mouthpiece for putting
forward his own views. Thus, in the later
Phaedo, we see Socrates claiming to have
positive knowledge of what happens after death. As
for The Apology, Socrates concludes in
typical manner, acknowledging that he does not, and
cannot, know for certain what awaits him after
death.
